Pendulum + Wheel = penduwheel

[fletcher]

hmmm .. as far as I know the If & AND functions should work ok - I just prefer to put a measure > time box up & then do the simple greater of lesser in the Active When etc from eye balling the sim each run - don't know off-hand whether the rigid joints will stay with the pendulum arm or the wheel - if you place them on the pendulum first then drag it across onto the wheel it might give more satisfactory results for you - ? - simple is better but you gotta do what works for you.

The other way is to use a center one-way rachet on the wheel [rigid joint placed over the pivot joint] - then when the pendulum gets to its max swing height the rigid joint turns on, effectively connecting the pendulum to the wheel from thereon ?!

[am1ll3r]

broli,
A few weeks back I had a similar idea... I had posted it in the archer wheel thread but here it is again.



The light blue is a heavy wheel. The dark blue gear is like on a bike, you can crank it forward then spin it backwards. The hammer weight should be able to be lifted with minimum effort do to lever action. Its not really shown on the picture but the yellow end of the lever  will retract so on the down swing of the weight it does not hit any of the pegs attached to the outside of the wheel. When back to starting positing the lever will extend and another peg will lift the weight back up ans so on.... the animation got a little squirrelly on me while I was making it thats why the dark blue gear starts to float around..Its not meant to look like that. Tongue I would imagine the heavy wheel would need a good spin to get it going then like riding a bike it takes less effort to (or so it seems) to maintain the same speed. I think the wheel in reality would need to be bigger as opposed to the lever mechanism but to show the concept it is what it is here.
Cheers Grin

[broli]

Oke folks I realized the mistake. When the pendulum falls and drags the wheel it doesn't transfer all of it energy in the wheel. Or else the pendulum wouldn't have an initial velocity at 3 o'clock. And that is the same energy that gets it past 9 o'clock. Now when it gets attached to the wheel it has pretty much has 0 energy and so the wheel has to poor lots of energy in it to get it back up.

@am1ll3r: That's an interesting concept I'll try to simulate it as well.